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Commercial Fertilizers

Commercial Fertilizers image
Parent Issue
Day
21
Month
September
Year
1888
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

The ingredients oí commercial fertilizers on which botli their agricultural anc commercial value chiefly depends, are nitrogen, pho3phorio acid and potash. Besides tlieso more valuable ingredierrts, sulphuric acid and lime are always present in the superphosphates in considerable quañtlties, bêing a necessary accompaniment of phosphoric acid as it exists in nearly all - manufactured fertilizers. Nitrogen is the most costly of the throe important ingredients mentioned, and a(Us largely to tlie value of all the fertilizers sold with but few exceptions. The following ïnaterials furnish organio nitrogen to fertilizers: Dried blood, dried and ground (ish, prepared animal matter, fish scrap, meat scrap, eotton seed meal, caster pomace, haïr, horn, wool, leather waste, etc. These substances must decompose and the nitrogen become changed mto compounds of nitric acid and ammonia before ifis available to plants. Soluble phosphoric acid is obtaincd by treating certaiu phosphatic materials, such as bono and South Carolina rock, with sulphuric acid. The potash used in this country for agricultural purposes comes mostly from Gerraany, in the so called "Germán potash salts," which includo potassium, sulphate, potassium chloride (the muríate) and kainite. Escept for a lew special purposes, potash is equally valuable in all these forms, but costs less in the muríate and in kainite.

Article

Subjects
Ann Arbor Argus
Old News